Diary of an up and coming sociopath

For those not aware of the fact, Nikki and I have actually taken the last few days off work, primarily motivated by the abundance of gigs this week, as noted elsewhere.

On Wednesday I got to tick off another item on my “bands to see live” list when we saw the Yeah Yeah Yeahs at Kentish Town Forum. Following two truly horrendous support acts (we’re talking earplugs necessary, bad, rather than simply Willy Mason bad, which I’ll get to soon.) I spent the majority of the gig in the moshpit because I expected it would be a fun one. I was perhaps unprepared for just how much fun, though, because after around 45 minutes of it I was knackered, dehydrated and soaked through with sweat, and usually I can go for twice that amount of time without many problems.

The setlist went: Fancy / Honeybear / Pin / Gold Lion / Cheated Hearts / Black Tongue / Phenomena / Mysteries / Art Star / Miles Away / Warrior / Y-Control // Maps (acoustic) / Turn Into / Date With the Night

I went into the pit for “pin” and decided that I’d heard everything I wanted after “Y-Control” which also turned our to be the end of the set. Maps acoustically was great, having heard how good they sound acoustic on Jonothan Ross’ breakfast show a few weeks ago it was no surprise, but definitely a good thing to have seen. My favourite song of the set was probably Art Star - it was the first YYYs song I ever heard some 4 or 5 years ago, in Dad’s range rover on the way back home after my first year of Uni after Bowie recommended it, again, on Ross’ breakfast show. It was a great gig, and certainly a band I’d hope to see live again.

On Thursday, I was discovered just how badly I’d screwed up my limbs from the previous day, and it didn’t really click until I went into Central London in search of the week’s comics and found that walking was not unlike dragging lead weights around. While wondering around FP I decided that now was the time to start really making use of that disposable income and bought two Marvel Legends figures, solely because they have two pieces of the Onslaught build-a-figure. I got the Head and Upper/Lower Torso pieces (with Pyro and Deathstrike figures, which are up on eBay right now because I don’t even slightly want them) I’m very pleased with how it worked out, even if Onslaught currently resembles a really evil parapalegic version of himself, with no arms and legs. I’ll be buying the rest this week, assuming FP haven’t sold out or something deeply inconvenient.

On Friday, I was blessed by twin joys. First, my copy of New Super Mario Bros. arrived. You have no idea how long I have waited for this day. I’m currently revising my review for NTS so I’ll link to it from here as soon as it’s done. Let’s just say that as expected, it’s almost totally supplanted Tetris DS.

In addition to that, there was the almost-as-anticipated Radiohead gig, at the Hammersmith Apollo. Still smarting from the YYYs gig I opted to wait out this gig in the normal crowd with Nikki. The support act was the truly diabolical Willy Mason. I was starting to wonder if I’ve gone soft on support bands because most of the recent gigs they’ve been pretty acceptable. Between this and the YYY’s support, though, I realise that support acts are as shit as ever. I understand some people might like Willy Mason, but to be totally honest his voice grates on me like a dentist’s drill. It could not have been over sooner for me.

Luckily, the ‘head’s appearance totally blew out the lingering cobwebs of Willy Mason’s performance and made it all seem that it had ocurred in a different lifetime. The simple fact is that there may quite well be no finer band in the country than Radiohead, and if that sounds like I’m being unoriginal, all I can say is that they’ve become popularwith people for a very good reason - that one. When a band can keep me hanging on every note during NEW songs, I know they’re something special because songs I don’t know often bore me to tears. Radiohead played almost an album’s worth of new material and still I could’ve heard more.

The set went: You & Whose Army? / The National Anthem / 2+2=5 / Open Pick / 15 Step / Exit Music (For a Film) / Dollars & Cents / Arpeggi / Videotape / Street Spirit (Fade Out) / Paranoid Android / Myxomatosis / Go Slowly / Spooks / Idioteque / Bangers ‘n’ Mash / Everything In It’s Right Place // There There / House Of Cards / Black Star / Lucky // 4 Minute Warning / Karma Police

Unfortunately, 4 Minute Warning was not the Mark Owen cover you might’ve been hoping for. Exit Music started off solo, whcih was great and gave us a chance to try taking some photos, Nikki’s probably going to stick them on her Flickr account soon if they’re worth sharing. My favourite song was Black Star, because it’s currently one of my favourite Radiohead songs, alongside Let Down and Planet Telex, though somewhat annoyingly they’ve been playing those on this tour too, but not tonight. Some of the new stuff was surprisingly straight rock & roll music which I’m incredibly interested to hear studio versions of. The quality of the new work is so good, I can’t wait for the new album. The main compensation for that being so far away, though, is that we’ll be seeing them again at V in August. Awesome.